The rain down on Route 7 had that heavy, greasy gray look to it that usually meant the drainage ditches behind the feed store were going to overflow by suppertime. I was standing under the aluminum awning of the hardware store with thirty yards of white gauze tucked under my arm and a cardboard box of plastic ivy resting on top of my spare boots. My feet already hurt from standing on the concrete floor of the hall since 7:00 in the morning, and the last thing I wanted to deal with was the four-mile walk back to the parish house in wet wool.
When the yellow sedan pulled up to the curb with the “Town Cab” sign half-crooked on the roof, I didn’t care that the muffler was rattling like a tin can full of bolts. I yanked the rear door open, shoved the box of ivy onto the floor mat beside my canvas bag, and hauled my skirts up so I wouldn’t drag the hem through three inches of road slush.
The driver didn’t turn around right away. He was a younger guy, maybe thirty or so, with thin dark hair curling against the collar of a faded blue windbreaker and a little gold cross swinging from his rearview mirror on a piece of greasy twine. He had the meter flipped down, but he just sat there staring straight ahead through the windshield wipers as they slapped back and forth against the glass with a dull rubber thump.
“Where to, Sister?” he asked. He didn’t sound mean, just tired in that flat way people get when they have been working double shifts at the packing plant down by the river.
“St. Jude’s parish hall,” I said, leaning my head back against the greasy vinyl headrest and closing my eyes for a second. “And step on it if you can. The girls are probably wondering where the altar decorations went.”
He put the car into drive, but instead of pulling back out into the greasy traffic of Main Street, he let the engine idle for a long, quiet moment while the vibration hummed right up through the floorboards into the marrow of my shins. He kept his hands resting at the bottom of the steering wheel, his knuckles gray where the skin stretched over the bone. I could see the side of his face in the rearview mirror, and his jaw was working like he was chewing on a piece of grit.
“Is something wrong, my son?” I asked, keeping my voice down to that low, steady register I usually use when I am trying to talk down someone’s husband who has had too much draft beer down at the Legion hall.
He shifted his weight in the seat, the springs groaning under him.
He still didn’t turn around, but I could see the red creeping up the back of his neck right into the roots of his hair.
“I’ve always had a fantasy of being kissed by a nun,” he said.
The words just sat there in the damp air between the front and back seats, smelling faintly of stale cigarette smoke and cheap pine air freshener. I didn’t move. I looked at the little plastic Jesus glued to his dashboard and then down at my own hands, where my knuckles were smeared with green floral tape. In a town like ours, you learn pretty quick that people carry strange things around in their heads, especially when the weather stays gray for three weeks straight and the second shift at the plant gets cut back to four days.
“Well,” I said, shifting the gauze box on my lap so it didn’t slide off my knees. “That depends entirely on the circumstances.”
He finally turned his head halfway around, his eyes wide and dark and looking a little desperate around the edges, like a stray dog cornered behind the lumberyard. “What circumstances?”
“Are you single?” I asked.
“Yes,” he lied instantly. It was too fast. A man telling the truth about being single usually hesitates for half a second to check the calendar in his head.
“And are you Catholic?”
“Born and raised,” he said, nodding so hard the little gold cross on the mirror started swinging in circles like a pendulum. “St. Anthony’s. Father Thomas knew my family for twenty years.”
I sat there for another beat, listening to the rain drumming against the roof of the cab. I thought about the three miles of wet asphalt still between us and the hall, and the cold ham sandwiches waiting on the folding table, and the way the heater in the back of the car smelled like burnt toast. I reached up, untied the stiff white linen band from under my chin, and folded it neatly into my lap.
“All right,” I said.
He leaned back, his eyes going wide with something that looked like pure shock mixed with a kind of dumb hope, and I leaned forward over the cracked plastic console between the bucket seats. It wasn’t a quick peck on the cheek. He pulled me in by the shoulder of my gray wool tunic, his hand shaking so hard his thumb brushed against my collarbone, and we stayed there for three long, clumsy seconds while the yellow cab sat idling in the middle of Main Street with its blinker clicking away to an empty curb.
When I pulled back, the air in the car felt different. Thicker. He let go of my shoulder as if the wool had burned him, and his hands dropped back down to the steering wheel.
Then he started to cry.
It wasn’t a quiet sniffle. His shoulders started heaving under the blue windbreaker, and he brought one hand up to wipe his nose with the back of his sleeve, leaving a damp streak across his cheek. He let out a ragged sort of breath that rattled right through his teeth.
I tied the white linen band back under my chin, smoothing the creases down with my palms the way my mother used to smooth out flour dough on the oilcloth table.
“Why are you crying?” I asked.
He kept his face turned toward the side window, staring out at the brick front of the hardware store where the neon “Open” sign was buzzing in the gray drizzle.
“I lied,” he whispered, his voice cracking right down the middle like dry kindling. “I’m married. And I’m Jewish.”
I looked at the back of his head for a second, watching the way his shoulders stayed hunched up toward his ears like he was waiting for a brick to come through the window. I reached down, popped the latch on the back door, and shoved my box of plastic ivy out onto the pavement before I leaned forward to tap him on the shoulder.
“That’s okay,” I said. “My name is Kevin and I’m on my way to a costume party at the Elks lodge.”
